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Privacy policy

We take your privacy very seriously. Please read this privacy policy carefully as it contains important information on who we are and how and why we collect, store, use and share your personal data when you are a client or prospective client or a user of our website.

It also explains your rights in relation to your personal data and how to contact us or supervisory authorities in the event you have a complaint.

This privacy policy does not apply to any third-party websites that may link to our own website. We do not control these third-party websites and are not responsible for their privacy statements. When you leave our website, we encourage you to read the privacy policy of every website you visit.

Clients of Higgs LLP should read this privacy policy alongside our Terms of Business, which provide further information on confidentiality. Please contact us if you require a further copy of our Terms of Business.

Who we are and what do we do?

Higgs LLP is a limited liability partnership, authorised and regulated by the Solicitors Regulation Authority under number 819589.

We collect, use and are responsible for certain personal data about you in our capacity as controller. When we do so we are subject to the UK General Data Protection Regulation and the Data Protection Act 2018. We are also subject to the EU General Data Protection Regulation in relation to services we may offer to individuals in the European Economic Area (EEA).

Our services and website are not aimed at children who are usually represented by their parents or guardians. If you are a child and you want further information about how we might use your personal data, please contact us.

Key terms

It would be helpful to start by explaining some key terms used in this privacy policy:

We, us, our	Higgs LLP 3 Waterfront Business Park Brierley Hill West Midlands DY5 1LX Telephone: 0345 111 5050
Head of Standards & Ethics	Beverley Scriven
Personal data	Any information relating to an identified or identifiable individual.
Special category personal data	Personal data revealing racial or ethnic origin, political opinions, religious beliefs, philosophical beliefs, trade union membership, genetic data, biometric data (where used for identification purposes) or data concerning health, sex life or sexual orientation.
Data subject	The individual who the personal data relates to.

Personal data we collect about you

The below sets out the personal data we will or may collect while providing legal services or hosting an event you have booked to attend. This may include special category personal data.

Personal data we will collect

Your name, address and telephone number
Information to enable us to check and verify your identity, e.g. your date of birth or passport details
Electronic contact details, e.g. your email address and mobile phone number
Information relating to the matter in which you are seeking our advice or representation
Your financial details so far as relevant to your instructions, e.g. the source of your funds if you are instructing on a purchase transaction or your bank details in relation to payment of our invoices
Information about your use of our IT, communication and other systems, and other monitoring information, e.g. if you are using a client online portal

Personal data we may collect depending upon why you have instructed us

Your National Insurance and tax details
Your bank and/or building society details
Details of your professional online presence, e.g. LinkedIn profile
Details of your spouse/partner and dependants or other family members, e.g. if you instruct us on a family matter or a will
Your employment status and details including salary and benefits, e.g. if you instruct us on a matter related to your employment or in which your employment status or income is relevant
Details of your pension arrangements, e.g. if you instruct us in relation to financial arrangements following the breakdown of a relationship
Your employment records including, where relevant, records relating to sickness and attendance, performance, disciplinary, conduct and grievances, e.g. if you instruct us on a matter relating to your employment or in which your employment records are relevant
Your racial or ethnic origin, gender or sexual orientation, religious or similar beliefs, e.g. if you instruct us on a discrimination claim
Your trade union membership, e.g. if you instruct us on a discrimination claim or matter that is funded by a trade union
Your medical records, e.g. if we are acting for you in a personal injury claim

This personal data is required to enable us to provide legal services. If you do not provide personal data when we ask for it, it may delay or prevent us from providing those services.

How your personal data is collected

We collect most of this information from you directly. However, we may also collect information:

from publicly accessible sources, e.g. Companies House, the Electoral Register or HM Land Registry;
directly from a third party, e.g. sanctions screening providers, client due diligence providers and providers of onboarding, client lifecycle management, risk management, compliance and payments services;
from a third party with your consent, e.g.
- your bank or building society, financial institution or advisor;
- consultants and other professionals we may engage in relation to your matter;
- your employer and/or trade union, professional body or pension administrators;
- your doctors, medical and occupational health professionals.
via our website – we use cookies on our website (for more information on cookies, please see our Cookies Policy which is available at www.higgsllp.co.uk);
through your use of our guest Wi-Fi service;
via our information technology (IT) systems, e.g.
- case management, document management and time recording systems;
- reception logs; and
- automated monitoring of our website and other technical systems, such as our computer networks and connections, communication systems, client portals, email and instant messaging.

How and why we use your personal data

Under data protection law, we can only use personal data if we have a proper reason for doing so, e.g.:

to comply with our legal and regulatory obligations;
for the performance of our contract with you or to take steps at your request before entering into a contract;
for our legitimate interests or those of a third party (see below); or
where you have given consent – where we need your consent, we will ask for it separately of this privacy policy and you can withdraw consent at any time.

A legitimate interest is when we have a business or commercial reason to use personal data, so long as this is not overridden by your own rights and interests. You have the right to object to processing based on legitimate interests. We must stop the processing unless we can demonstrate compelling legitimate grounds which override your interests, rights and freedoms or that the processing is required to establish, exercise or defend legal claims.

The table below explains what we use your personal data for and why:

What we use personal data for	Our reasons
To provide legal services to our clients	For the performance of our contract with our client or to take steps at our client’s request before entering into a contract
To facilitate payments	For the performance of our contract with our client
Preventing or detecting fraud against you or us	For our legitimate interests, i.e. to minimise fraud that could be damaging to you and/or us
Conducting checks to identify our clients and verify their identity and checks for our regulatory compliance purposes and screening for sanctions and embargoes and conflicts. We use credit databases to do this and online sanctions checking services. The Higgs LLP branded ID verification software is an electronic solution operated through third party software. The software, operational systems and servers have been developed and are maintained by The Justice Platform Ltd t/as Legl (“Legl”), who we understand are established in this field. Legl’s privacy policy in relation to the information you provide can be accessed here: Legl will disclose personal data to Equifax, which may keep a record of that information and provide it (and the fact that a search was made) to its other customers to verify identity, assess the risk of giving credit, prevent fraud and money laundering and trace debtors. The CRA Information Notice can be accessed here.	To comply with our legal and regulatory obligations
Other processing necessary to comply with professional, legal and regulatory obligations that apply to our business, e.g. rules issued by our professional regulator
To enforce legal rights or defend or undertake legal proceedings	Depending on the circumstances, to comply with our legal and regulatory obligations and for our legitimate interests, i.e. to protect our business, interests and rights.
Gathering and providing information required by or relating to audits, enquiries or investigations by regulatory bodies	To comply with our legal and regulatory obligations
Ensuring business policies are adhered to, e.g. policies covering security and internet use	For our legitimate interests or those of a third party, i.e. to make sure we are following our own internal procedures so we can deliver the best service to you
Operational reasons, such as improving efficiency, training, obtaining feedback and quality control	For our legitimate interests or those of a third party, i.e. to be as efficient as we can so we can deliver the best service for you at the best price
Ensuring the confidentiality of commercially sensitive information	For our legitimate interests or those of a third party, i.e. to protect our intellectual property and other commercially valuable information To comply with our legal and regulatory obligations
Statistical analysis to help us manage our practice, e.g. in relation to financial performance, client base, work type or other efficiency measures	For our legitimate interests or those of a third party, i.e. to be as efficient as we can so we can deliver the best service for you at the best price
Protecting the security of systems and data used to provide services, preventing unauthorised access and changes to our systems	For our legitimate interests or those of a third party, i.e. to prevent and detect criminal activity that could be damaging for us and for you To comply with our legal and regulatory obligations
Updating and enhancing client records	For the performance of our contract with you or to take steps at your request before entering into a contract To comply with our legal and regulatory obligations For our legitimate interests or those of a third party, e.g. making sure that we can keep in touch with our clients about existing and new services
Statutory returns	To comply with our legal and regulatory obligations
Ensuring safe working practices, staff administration and assessments	To comply with our legal and regulatory obligations For our legitimate interests or those of a third party, e.g. to make sure we are following our own internal procedures and working efficiently so we can deliver the best service to you
Marketing our services to: existing and former clients; third parties who have previously expressed an interest in our services; and	For our legitimate interests or those of a third party, i.e. to promote our business to existing, prospective and former clients
External audits and quality checks, e.g. for ISO and the audit of our accounts	For our legitimate interests or those of a third party, i.e. to maintain our accreditations so we can demonstrate we operate at the highest standards To comply with our legal and regulatory obligations
To share your personal data with members of our group	Depending on the circumstances, to comply with our legal and regulatory obligations and in other cases, for our legitimate interests, i.e. to provide legal services
To share with third parties that may take ownership of some or all of our business (and professional advisors acting on our or their behalf) in connection with a significant corporate transaction or restructuring including merger, acquisition, asset sale or in the event of our insolvency. In such cases information will be anonymised where possible and only shared where necessary.	Depending on the circumstances, to comply with our legal and regulatory obligations and in other cases, for our legitimate interests, i.e. to protect, realise or grow the value in our business and assets.
Customise our website and its contents to your preferences based on a record of your selected preferences or on your use of our website	Depending on the circumstances: Your consent as gathered by the cookies tool on our website – see our Cookies Policy which is available at www.higgsllp.co.uk Where we are not required to obtain your consent and do not do so, for our legitimate interests or those of a third party, i.e. to be as efficient as we can so we can deliver the best service to you at the best price
Retaining and evaluating information on your recent visits to our website and how you move around different sections of our website for analytical purposes. This helps us to understand how people use our website so that we can make it more intuitive or to check our website is working as intended	Depending on the circumstances: Your consent as gathered by the cookies tool on our website – see our Cookies Policy which is available at www.higgsllp.co.uk Where we are not required to obtain your consent and do not do so, for our legitimate interests or those of a third party, i.e. to be as efficient as we can so we can deliver the best service to you at the best price

How and why we use special category personal data

Where we process special category personal data (see above Key Terms), we will ensure we are permitted to do so under data protection laws, for example:

we have your explicit consent;
the processing is necessary to protect your (or someone else’s) vital interests where you are physically or legally incapable of giving consent;
the processing is necessary to establish, exercise or defend legal claims; or
the processing is necessary for reasons of substantial public interest.

Marketing

We may use your personal data to send you updates (by email, text message, telephone, post or social media channels) about legal developments that might be of interest to you and/or information about our services, including offers, promotions or new services or to invite you to an event we think might be of interest to you.

We have a legitimate interest in processing your personal data for marketing purposes (see above: How and why we use personal data). This means we do not usually need your consent to send you promotional or marketing communications. However, where consent is needed, we will ask for this consent separately and clearly.

We will always treat your personal data with the utmost respect and never sell or share it with other organisations for marketing purposes.

You have the right to opt out of receiving promotional and marketing communications at any time by:

contacting us by email at businessdevelopment@higgsllp.co.uk
contacting us by telephone at 0345 111 5050
using the ‘unsubscribe’ link in emails

We may ask you to confirm or update your marketing preferences if you instruct us to provide further services in the future, or if there are changes in the law, regulation, or the structure of our business.

Who we share your personal data with

We routinely share personal data with:

companies within the Higgs LLP group;
third parties we use to help deliver our services to you e.g. providers of our case management and finance system, IT service providers including cloud providers such as data storage platforms, shared service centres and financial institutions in connection with invoicing and payments;
third party external advisors or experts engaged in the course of providing services to you, e.g. barristers, solicitors, tax advisors, accountants, medical experts, witnesses and tracing agents;
third-party technology service providers such as providers of onboarding, client lifecycle management, risk management, compliance and payments services and ediscovery and document review platforms;
companies providing services for money laundering checks and other crime prevention purposes and companies providing similar services, including financial institutions and credit reference agencies;
third parties with whom we are hosting an event which you have asked to attend;
other third parties we use to help promote our business and obtain feedback e.g. marketing agencies;
third parties approved by you, e.g. social media sites you choose to link your account to or third party payment providers;
our insurers and brokers;
our bank(s);
external auditors e.g. such as ISO accreditors or the statutory audit of our accounts;
our regulators and the Legal Ombudsman.

We only allow our service providers to handle your personal data if we are satisfied they take appropriate measures to protect your personal data. We also impose contractual obligations on service providers to ensure they can only use your personal data to provide services to us and to you.

We may disclose and exchange information with law enforcement agencies and our regulatory bodies to comply with our legal and regulatory obligations.

We may also need to share some personal data with other parties, such as potential buyers of some or all of our business or during a re-structuring. Usually, information will be anonymised but this may not always be possible. The recipient of the information will be bound by confidentiality obligations.

We will not share your personal data with any other third party.

If you would like more information about who we share our data with and why, please contact us.

Where your personal data is held

Information may be held at our offices or by third party agencies, service providers, representatives and agents as described above (see: Who we share your personal data with).

Some of these third parties may be based outside the UK. For more information, including on how we safeguard your personal data when this occurs, see below: Transferring your personal data abroad.

How long will your personal data be kept

We will keep your personal data after we have finished advising or acting for you. We will do so for one of these reasons:

to respond to any questions, complaints or claims made by you or on your behalf; or
to keep records required by law and to satisfy our regulatory, tax, accounting or reporting requirements.

We will not retain your personal data for longer than necessary for the purposes set out in this privacy policy. Different retention periods apply for different types of data. To determine the appropriate retention period for personal data, we consider the amount, nature and sensitivity of the personal data, the potential risk of harm from unauthorised use or disclosure of your personal data, the purposes for which we process your personal data and whether we can achieve those purposes through other means, and the applicable legal, regulatory, tax, accounting or other requirements. Further details of this are available in our Data Retention and Destruction Procedure.

When it is no longer necessary to retain your personal data, we will destroy, delete or anonymise it.

Transferring your personal data out of the UK and EEA

It may be necessary for us to transfer your personal data to countries outside the UK and EEA. This may include countries which do not provide the same level of protection of personal data as the UK or EEA.

We will transfer your personal data outside the UK and EEA only where:

the UK government or European Commission has decided that the recipient country ensures an adequate level of protection of personal data (known as an adequacy decision); or
there are appropriate safeguards in place (e.g. standard contractual data protection clauses published or approved by the relevant data protection regulator), together with enforceable rights and effective legal remedies for you; or
a specific exception applies under data protection law.

Cookies

A cookie is a small text file which is placed onto your device (e.g. computer, smartphone or other similar electronic device) when you use our website. We use cookies on our website.

For further information on cookies please see our Cookies Policy which is available on our website at www.higgsllp.co.uk

Your legal rights

You have the following rights, which you can exercise and this will usually be free of charge:

Access	The right to be provided with a copy of your personal data
Rectification	The right to require us to correct any mistakes in your personal data
To be forgotten (also known as erasure)	The right to require us to delete your personal data – in certain situations
Restriction of processing	The right to require us to restrict processing of your personal data – in certain circumstances, e.g. if you contest the accuracy of the data
Data portability	The right to receive the personal data you provided to us, in a structured, commonly used and machine-readable format and/or transmit that data to a third party – in certain situations
To object	The right to object: at any time to your personal data being processed for direct marketing (including profiling); and in certain other situations to our continued processing of your personal data, e.g. processing carried out for the purpose of our legitimate interests
Not to be subject to automated individual decision making	The right not to be subject to a decision based solely on automated processing (including profiling) that produces legal effects concerning you or similarly significantly affects you
The right to withdraw consent	If you have provided us with a consent to use your personal data you have a right to withdraw that consent at any time. You may withdraw your consent by contacting the lawyer dealing with your matter if you are a client or otherwise by contacting our Head of Standards & Ethics at beverley.scriven@higgsllp.co.uk Withdrawing a consent will not affect the lawfulness of our use of your personal data in reliance on that consent before it was withdrawn.

You will not have to pay a fee to access your personal data (or to exercise any of the other rights). However, we may charge a reasonable fee if your request is clearly unfounded, repetitive or excessive. Alternatively, we could refuse to comply with your request in these circumstances.

We try to respond to all legitimate requests within one month. Occasionally it could take us longer than a month if your request is particularly complex or you have made a number of requests. In this case, we will notify you and keep you updated.

For further information on each of these rights, including the circumstances in which they apply, please contact us or see the guidance from the UK Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) on individuals’ rights.

If you would like to exercise any of those rights, please:

contact us – see below: How to contact us;
let us have enough information to identify you, e.g. your full name and address and client or matter reference number;
let us have proof of your identity (a copy of your driving licence or passport and a recent utility bill); and
let us know what right you want to exercise and the information to which your request relates.

Keeping your personal data secure

We have implemented appropriate security measures to keep your personal data confidential and secure from unauthorised access, use and disclosure. We limit access to your personal data to those that have a genuine business need to access it. Those processing your personal data will do so only in an authorised manner and are subject to a duty of confidentiality.

We also have procedures in place to deal with any suspected data security breach. We will notify you and any applicable regulator of a suspected data security breach where we are legally required to do so.

We require our business partners, suppliers and other third parties to implement appropriate security measures to protect personal data from unauthorised access, use and disclosure.

How to complain

We hope that we can resolve any query or concern you may raise about our use of your personal data. Please contact us if you have any queries or concerns about how we use your personal data (see below How to contact us).

You have the right to lodge a complaint with a supervisory authority. The supervisory authority in the UK is the Information Commissioner (ICO) who may be contacted at www.ico.org.uk or by telephone on 0303 123 1113.

Changes to this privacy policy

We may change this privacy policy from time to time. This privacy policy was last updated in August 2023.

Updating your personal data

We take reasonable steps to ensure your personal data remains accurate and up to date. To help us with this, please let us know if any of the personal data you have provided to us has changed, e.g. your surname or address.

How to contact us

Please contact us by post, email or telephone if you have any questions about this privacy policy or the information we hold about you.

Our contact details are shown below:

Beverley Scriven – Head of Standards & Ethics
Email: beverley.scriven@higgsllp.co.uk

Telephone: 0345 111 5050
Address: 3 Waterfront Business Park, Brierley Hill, West Midlands DY5 1LX